California landlords furious as COVID eviction bans drag on: ‘I’m owed $120K’ in rent payments

Landlords in the San Francisco Bay Area are pushing back against a proposal that would expand a COVID-era eviction ban as they struggle financially without rent payments. 

Dean Preston, who is a self-proclaimed Democratic socialist that sits on the San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, announced on Twitter this week he would propose an ordinance to extend the COVID-era eviction ban that is supposed to expire in the coming months.

“I am getting ready to introduce an extension of our eviction ban here in San Francisco,” he said. “I wanted you to be the first to know. We got to make sure that we are not going off an eviction cliff when the local state of emergency ends. That’s why we’re introducing this ordinance.”

CALIFORNIA COUNTY BANS LANDLORDS FROM CONDUCTING CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECKS FOR HOUSING

Mayor London Breed gives the State of the City Address in San Francisco, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP) (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

“We wanted to make sure the health crisis did not become an eviction crisis,” he continued. 

He went on to explain he has written 13 pieces of legislation to reduce and even ban evictions due to the pandemic. 

A San Leandro landlord, George Wu, is a Chinese immigrant who lost a whopping $120,000 in rent payments in recent years. He went on a hunger strike last month joining a protest outside a local government office last month. The Alameda County Board of Supervisors decided the eviction moratorium would expire at the end of April, two months after the state officially ended its COVID emergency. 

San Francisco landlord Jenny Zhao has also struggled to make ends meet since Mayor London Breed barred landlords from evicting their tenants, citing the pandemic.

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“Fox & Friends First” co-host Todd Piro asked Friday how she is “making up” for the lost income. 

“Work hard,” she replied. “Try to make up by working more on our end… We have to pay everything, and we also need to make our living ourselves.”

According to the mayor’s website, Breed signed legislation in July 2022 that “that prohibits landlords from evicting residential tenants for non-payment of rent that originally came due on or after July 1, 2022 and was not paid due to the COVID-19 pandemic.” The policy is “ongoing.”

The website also mentions landlords cannot charge their tenants “late fees, penalties, or similar charges on tenants who are unable to pay their post-July 2022 rent due to COVID-19.”

The mayor’s policy, however, does not protect tenants with rental debt that was accrued before July 2022. 

President of the Business and Housing Network Jennifer Liu slammed the proposal, saying it “doesn’t make sense” while noting that landlords have still been forced to pay their property taxes despite the overdue income. 

“It doesn’t make sense,” Liu said. “COVID is well behind us and people’s lives are back to normal.”

President of the Business and Housing Network Jennifer Liu joined ‘Fox & Friends First’ to discuss why the proposal ‘doesn’t make sense.’

“How can the government justify that people cannot find jobs because of COVID? It doesn’t make sense,” she continued. “The eviction moratorium has been long overdue to be terminated.”

California has no statewide eviction ban in place now, but policy did bar landlords from evicting tenants up until June 2022 that met certain income thresholds and completed a rental relief application, according to Nolo. 

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But even despite no statewide policy prohibiting evictions, some cities and counties have implemented local eviction bans anyway, more than three years since the pandemic first began.